“Whiles I Yet Live: Matriarchy and Generational Exchange in Gee’s Bend,” a new exhibit at the National Quilt Museum, is on display now through Dec. 28.
The exhibit features a collection of quilts from Gee’s Bend, a small African American community in southern Alabama famous for a long, familial tradition of the artform. The quilts on display range in the dates of their creation from the 1930s to 2025.
“We are so pleased to have this exhibition here,” National Quilt Museum Curator Rachael Baar said. “Not only because of their cultural and historical value and contributions to American history, but because they are so unique and they show such creativity. And I dare say that most quilters, whether they really know it or not, have been influenced by the quilts of Gee’s bend.”
Baar said while the quilts are now recognized as art, having been displayed in more than 20 museums across the globe, their creation was much more concerned with practicality. In contrast to many of the more modern quilts on display at the museum, many of the Gee’s Bend quilts were created with scraps of repurposed materials like jeans and work clothes for a quilt’s most evident purpose.
“If you look at some of the patterns, they look very much like modern paintings,” Baar said. “But they didn’t know that this is what they were creating. They were just doing something to keep themselves warm.”
There also is a strong generational aspect to the exhibit. Baar said some of the artists on display are family members.
“I think that what they all have in common is the fact that there is such a strong story behind them,” Baar said. “Maybe they learned from their grandmother, or their aunt or somebody else in their family taught them how to quilt. Not necessarily because they wanted to, but that was part of a tradition. That was part of being a part of Gee’s Bend.”
One of the quilters featured in the exhibit, Mary Margaret Pettway, will be joining the museum from Wednesday through Friday to host a quilt design and hand quilting workshop from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day. More information about the exhibit and workshop, as well as registration for the classes, can be found at the National Quilt Museum’s website, quiltmuseum.org.
Pettway also will host a reception sponsored by the Paducah-McCracken County NAACP on Friday. The event is from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. and is free and open to the public.